Hot Chocolate
by CrazyIndigoChild
Summary: A late Valentine's day fic. Alonzo was planning to ask his kittenhood crush, Cassandra, to be his lovely Valentine. Plans, and chocolates, melt before his eyes when she's turns up taken by another tom. Turns out someone else got left behind as well.


Sorry this is up late :( I started late and finished a bit late...*it's march -_-

Anywho, new couple, new genre :) Can't wait to see what you think!

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He propped himself up on his elbows and reached out for the tiny, ruby package. He inspected the perfect, flawless box; nothing looked more beautiful than the little immaculate structure. A find like this was rare in the debris of the junkyard: which is why he had stolen it. He opened the delicate paper lid to count all 12 chocolates sitting patiently in their perfectly shaped imprints. His mind reeled with ideas on how he was to deliver such a prize to a certain Abysian queen.

Aside from the opportunity to woo his kittenhood crush, he hated the idea of a day dedicated to love and mates and all that garbage; it only served to remind those who didn't have anyone to share it with that they were alone. He could think of a few toms and queens who would be alone this valentine's day; he would be one of them if he didn't get his lazy tail out of bed.

He ungracefully rolled of the bed and onto the floor where he picked himself off and made for the mirror over his water tub. He graciously pawed at the clear water and ran his slick paw over the black and white disheveled fur until it was nice and flat. Eager to start his morning, he rushed out of the door to his den.

The weather completely caught him off guard when he had prepared for the brick wall that was winter but was met with a spring wind. _Great_, he thought enthusiastically_, spring in winter is romantic enough_. He jogged over to the tire located in the social center of the junkyard; most, if not all, of the toms had gathered together to come up with this year's 'ladies' surprise'.

He sat down between Tugger and Munkustrap to listen as Pouncival pitched his idea to the group. He hadn't caught what had been said but from the looks on everyone's faces it wasn't very good.

"I don't think the queens will like it if we turned their fur pink, Pounce," Quaxo rejected apologetically, giving him a small smile.

"Yeah, but wait-" Tumble shifted beside the young tom, not so subtly nudging him in the ribs. Pouncival just shrugged him off, happy to at least be included in this year's planning. "That's where your magic comes in! We can have magic paint that only comes off if they kiss us," he finished with a smile. Tugger gave a loud clap of approval. "Great! We can bribe the queens into loving us!"

Pounce grimaced before heavily sitting down next to his littermate. Ideas passed through the group but none of them could come up with a decent idea fit for the queens. After a while, the conversation switched from formulating plans to exchanging the day's agenda. As he originally predicted, the same toms from his earlier list of valentine-less turned up without plans or a date. Oddly enough, Tugger was among those.

When questioned about why he decided to stay date-less, or how he managed it for that matter, the coon just shrugged and gave the group a wicked grin. "I thought that this year, instead of staying in with all this mushy, lovey-dovey stuff, I'd go out drinking with my single compadres!" The group roared with laughter, the Tugger would not last the night without trying to pick up a queen to take home for the evening.

Despite his efforts to form a strong group of bachelors, the once free toms started to count themselves out. Tugger frowned distastefully, he reached over and grabbed Quaxo around the shoulders. "Fine! Quaxo, Mungo and I will go out and get our drink on. We'll down our loneliness along with the bottoms of our whiskey bottles!"

While Quaxo was busy trying to rid himself of the privilege of going out drinking with the reckless flirt, Munkustrap turned to his young apprentice curiously. "You haven't put in a word, Lonz. What are your plans for valentine's?" Alonzo stalled momentarily, he hadn't actually made any plans per say, but he was going to be quite busy once he-

"Damn!" He shot up from his seat in the circle and bolted for his den. The queens would be returning from their meeting and he would be unprepared for Cassandra's return! He looked up at the sun, he had been with the toms for a while now; he didn't have much time to prepare.

He stumbled into the den, returning to his mirror and tub to gussy up. He ran his paw back over the ruffled patches of fur, making sure to spend particular attention to his headfur for it was the most unruly, and slicked down the rest in his hurry.

He turned from his primping to fetch the box of chocolates; his heart dropped when he found the little red package sitting neatly atop a sticky-sweet puddle of melted chocolate. He cringed as he slowly opened the once pristine lid to look at the massacre inside, she sight was truly heart wrenching taking into account how much trouble had been put into getting them.

Alonzo sighed deeply, he couldn't present these to Cassandra; he'd be the laughingstock of the array of desperate (and considerably romantic) toms. He discouragingly trudged out of his den, box of chocolate in hand, heading out to make an unprepared proposal.

He made it to the clearing where all the Jellicles were busy making their valentine's day arrangements. He watched as Tugger was hugging Mungojerrie and Quaxo in each arm, already somewhat inebriated. Quaxo looked to Alonzo for help while Mungo tried to push the coon off him. He gave Quaxo an apologetic smile in return and continued down towards the small cluster of still available queens.

'_Hey Cassie, I was wondering if you'd like to be my valentine?... Oh this? It's just a melted box of chocolates I got for you, well, they weren't melted when I stole them- got them._' He paused, legitimately considering turning around and giving up on his whole mission. No. He had worked hard for this gift, he was going to use it; melted or not. Afterall, you don't take a couple good whacks from an angry shopkeeper just to give up! He picked himself up and carried onward, the giggling grew louder when they noticed Alonzo's approach.

His mouth went dry under the queens' expectant stares and his paws started to grow clamy. It wasn't that he had a problem with the ladies, infact he was more of a chick magnet than the esteemed Jellicle leader himself (one would assume that chicks were into the whole power gig), the only issue was that he was going into a battle with a foam sword and tinfoil shield: let the laughing begin.

He stopped suddenly as he scanned the faces. The group was already really small, only a few of the younger or less sociable queens remained; none of those were Cassandra. Surely there must have been a misunderstanding! Everyone knew that he was going to ask her this year, hell, even she probably knew! Exotica noticed his crestfallen, bewildered expression and quickly put the pieces together. "I'm sorry Alonzo." His head slowly turned to the quiet queen, he didn't want to hear what he already knew: he was too late. "She left with Plato a little while ago," she explained apologetically.

"Oh, I see." He couldn't keep the disappointment from his voice. Plato. He should have known it was him; although he expected the rusty tom would pick Victoria, Everlasting knows they had the hots for each other. He quietly thanked the brown queen and went back towards his den; maybe he could spare Quaxo the torture of being Tugger's little queen-scoring guinea pig, or worse, his spotter.

"Tugger, what the hell!" Speaking of the devil. He looked up at the familiar voice of the young tuxedo cat. He was sitting on the ground in front of the boot of the car in a huge puddle of mud made by the constant flow of melted ice and snow running off the car's smooth curve. His legs were completely submerged in the puddle up to his waist, mud coated nearly every inch of fur below his shoulders and some was even matted into his headfur. A dangerous glare shot up at the now hysterical coon with an equally giddy Etcetera at his side, threatening a world of pain.

Alonzo cringed, the poor tux would be cleaning mud out of his fur for days and it would surely remain grimy for the next week or so. If it were him that tom would already be dead, he'd be using his maine as a towel and his pelt as a floor mat. As expected, the tux prepared for retaliation. He scooped up a wad of mud and launched it at the flirt's glorious mane. "Hey!" the slightly buzzed Tugger shrieked. "Do you know how hard it is to get mud out of this thing?"

"Stick around and you'll be cleaning it in Heavyside!" He launched another clot of mud but the coon was quick; he reached over and grabbed Etcetera to shield him from the mud. She got splattered with an ear splitting shriek. Tugger panicked momentarily and threw her down into the puddle with the swamped tux, nearly crushing him. Soon enough, an outright war had broken out.

Being smart about the cause and effects of jumping into a mud war, the cons definitely outweighing the pros this time around, he immediately found shelter in the oven. Running across the clearing, he found Victoria had the same idea. They dodged flying mud patties until the had reached the old appliance. They leaped inside where they pressed themselves firmly against the back wall. "That was close," Alonzo whispered after a few moments of panting for breath.

"Sure was. But I don't think the dirt in here is helping our coats anymore than the mud out there," she replied breathlessly. They both chuckled softly before falling quiet, the screaming of stricken queens and the battle-cries of excited toms were slightly muffled by the thick walls of the oven. "Heard about Cassie," she began after a minute. "Heard about Plato," he replied. She nodded. He wasn't sure whether she was angry or sad about Plato not picking her but she definitely wasn't ecstatic for them.

She sighed as she dropped her head back to make a soft thud against the metal wall behind her. "I really thought he was going to ask me, ya know?" Alonzo could only agree, he thought he was going to pick her... mainly because he didn't want Plato to pick Cassandra. "I feel like such a fool," she admitted. "I kinda gloated about it to the other queens." He could hear the blush in her voice. They both laughed at the irony.

"Well, you could always come drinking with the single toms tonight. I'm sure your brother would appreciate having someone else to form intelligent conversation with, aside from myself of course." She snickered, her stomach tightening at the realization that he thought she was smart.

"I'd like that," she smiled. They looked at each other in the dim light of their cavern, softly smiling as they became aware of their bodies touching. Alonzo was the first to look away, _damn queen's got me falling for her!_ He shifted forward onto his knees to go inspect the state of the clearing and maybe get a status on the progression of the battle. A light gasp kept him from crawling to the door of the stove.

Victoria groaned and grunted angrily, huffing noisily. "Alonzo, you tool!" he looked back over his shoulder to find that her knee and part of her thigh was covered in mud. "It wasn't me! And in case you haven't noticed, we're kinda sitting in a grease riddled oven," he protested. He crawled back to the queen and inspected her dirtied white fur.

He chuckled before leaning down and licking the dark substance off her knee, still sweet. He looked up at her quizzical stare. "It's chocolate," he explained blankly. Curiously, she scooped a finger full of the chocolate and licked it tentatively, eyes widening at the melted treat.

"This is amazing! Where'd you get it?" She leaned over to lick up the rest of the substance off her leg; happy that, for once, a brown sludge on her pristine coat did not turn out to be something utterly repulsive and inconvenient. "I jacked it off a specialty shop downtown. I was hoping it would land me a date," he smiled sheepishly.

"Well, Cassandra doesn't know what she's missing out on. I get to have her chocolate and eat it too." They both laughed. Alonzo silently pulled out the squished box that lay crumpled on the floor to offer more to the contented queen. She reached out for the box graciously, quickly smearing a line of warm chocolate on his nose before gently relieving him of his offering. He gave her a gentle grin before licking it off. "Happy Valentine's day," he chided with a slight hint of irony.

Victoria stared at him momentarily mid-lick; she did feel bad for the tom, he went through a lot of trouble and had been crushing on the elegant queen for a very long time. She could relate, she had an unimaginable crush on Plato since they were just out of kittenhood. Sure, it wasn't a very long time but it was still long enough for her to be really bummed out. "You know," she began as she licked up a lump of semi-melted truffle from its wrapper. "I don't really like the idea of going out drinking with the guys. I think I'd like to go get myself some more of this... Would you like to show me where you got them?"

Alonzo's ears perked up at that, was this her way of asking him to spend the day with her? He watched her attack another wrapper with her tongue, she looked really contented with the soiled food; he would like to treat her to the real merchandise, show her he was far above mud-imitating candies when it came to treating a lovely queen.

"S-sure, they don't need us to go drinking. Quaxo's there to spot, I'm sure they won't even care." Victoria smiled at this, a genuine, kind smile that might have given away more than what she originally intended. Alonzo returned the grin fondly. Maybe this Valentine's day wouldn't turn out so bad afterall.

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So yeah! This was a trade I made with a friend on Deviantart. I 'm not sure whether or not she has an account on :S She's giving me a Munkustrap pin up :) I'm so excited!

Please review :) They are very much appreciated!


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